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Step by Step/Issue 20
This is Issue #20 of Step by Step. This is the second issue of Volume Four. Limestone and the Rest Tick, tock. Private Gordon Black of the Indiana National Guard watched the clock, pacing back and forth in the room. Been around this world so many times, if you could only see my mind. He was clutching his arm, rubbing it intently. The clock read six thirty-five in the morn'in, but that was useless info. It wasn't even close to morning anymore. Any boy of Indiana youth would know. The electricity had fried itself, he thought. Plus, now he was at the top of his game now. Packed full of energy, and he felt that he could climb the highest mountain. Ozzy Osbourne. Leg's gonna be a pain, though. Gordon took a breath, pausing. The blood rushed back into his head, knocking his eyesight over. He could still tell there was another poor sucker in the room with him, resting his broken body near a green table to the side. But he didn't look at the bloody man sitting down and let fine Lilian handle him. Oh, he's got a sprained back? No problemo, senor. Gordon looked over, quickly regretting it. "Is there a man named Lyle Jackson here?" the bloodied Jose asked Gordon. "How's that?" "He's black, and the other's white—Nolan Brackenbury?" "You mean the gangsters?" said Gordon. "You can't be sure that they're gangsters," Lilian said. "They are," said Jose. "Bad ones." "That's funny," Gordon chuckled and said. "The dude who we arrested out there, when we found you, was actually Nolan, I think." "It was," Lilian said. "You got laid out, right?" Gordon pulled out a seat, didn't care that it was a rolling seat with wheels. He plopped down and scooted to the two, looking interested in the man. What he had to say. But really, Gordon was as sarcastic as they came. And he couldn't help himself. "Go toe-to-toe with a sumo?" Jose scrunched up his nose. "What?" "Well," Gordon started. "It's obvious you got pounded on, Herman." "My name's not Herman." "No?" Gordon slouched back, grinning to Lilian who had finished wrapping Jose's hand with gauze. "Y'know, Herman the One-Eyed German. Not assuming anything, but you don't look German. But no one fools Gordon Black." "Kind of contra''dic''ted yourself there, Don." Lilian snickered to herself, realizing her play on words. "Getting dirty there, Lilian." Jose sighed. "I don't get what you guys are saying." Gordon smiled widely, moving in on Jose. He mashed both of his hands together in front of Jose. "Smash, smash. Like the Hulk. Look at these marks, dude. Bruise after bruise, you look like a damn grape." Jose's eyes grew bigger than a chia pet on steroids. "I get the joke now, so you're saying I was beat up? Yeah, I was, but by my own SUV. Y'know, the car." "The automobile," said Gordon. Lilian set up another gauze around Jose's shoulder, lifting up his tangerine shirt. "Obviously you were." "Yeah, well, it wasn't really like that." Gordon put a hand up, "Let's wait for my partner in crime, does that sound good?" Gordon pulled a faked yawn. "Kind of burnt out right now, and I don't feel like explaining everything to her. You dig me, Jose?" "How'd you know my name?" Gordon paused, grabbed his chest, then laughed like his football team had just scored. Or, more realistically, his bet on the next winner to grab the winning title for the Indy 500 had done his best and secured that damn shiny trophy. "Whoa, talk about luck. I guessed your name was Jose. Not that I'm stereotypical or anything." Lilian dropped Jose's shirt, patting his back. "All good to go." She got up from her seat next to Jose and started for the door. "Sorry for leaving you here with this guy, Jose." "We'll be fine here, missy," said Gordon as he waved good bye. "And good riddance!" Gordon heard the door open behind him, but then became aware of a different set of footsteps pouring into the room. "Well, well..." He turned around, still clutching his arm. He didn't want to hold his thigh, even though it still ached. Ached all over and he couldn't stop it. He was running purely off a Gatorade he chugged down before he took on Carter. Otherwise, Gordon would be laying down in one of the cots and crying in his sleep from the brilliant agony in his thigh. It hurt just to move his foot. Everything's connected, Lilian had told him. She assured him that they would find him something to walk with, but he assured her right back that he was fine. Nothing could stop Gordon. Nothing runs like a Deere and nothing runs like a Gordon. "What's cracka lackin', bacon bits?" He craned his head to the side, aware that Amanda was walking over to them. "Speak of the devil." "Sure," Amanda said. She stood next to them not because there were no chairs left, but she was to angry to remain seated. "Catch me up to speed?" "We haven't gossiped a lot, trust me." Gordon looked to Jose, who was holding his head and clenched his cheeks with his fingers. Jose was a pale tan and looked drier than bones. He must've been hungry or something because his stomach growled. "Dude, this is not the time to be praying." "Don, meet me in the gym, later!" Lilian shouted on her way out. "We still have to discuss your leg, mister." Gordon chuckled, tilting his head to Jose. "Rain check," Gordon patted his leg. "Got me a hole in my leg. Twice the action, my friend." Jose jolted up, his eyes filled with immediate shock. He gulped. "Yeah, I guess." Gordon reeled up his pantleg, "Wanna peak?" "No thanks," Amanda said. "Save it for the show." "Oh come on, it really knocks my socks off." "So you're proud about a hole in your thigh?" Gordon smirked. "Gotta spice it up." He chuckled to Jose. "Anyways, meet my partner in crime, Amanda. We've hardly gotten a chance to get to know one another, but, eh. I like her from the looks of things. Hell of a shot, she is." Amanda and Jose exchanged looks, both seeming confused with Gordon. Almost crept out. Jose flashed a look to them both, "So you wanna interrogate me or something?" "Unless your a criminal or something," Amanda said. "But you don't seem like one." "Yeah," Gordon spoke, "if he was a thug he'd be looting one of the stores around here." Gordon grimaced. "Only the dumb ones poke us with sticks." "There's tons of that, really," Jose threw up his hands like he was playing poker, but he just fell back into his seat in throbbing pain. "On my way here I saw people trashing every Dairy Queen and Walmart in sight, one looter even tried to break into my truck." "I like trucks," said Gordon. "My dad's got a big one." Amanda leaned in. "How'd you reach the school? The whole radius around the school is clogged full of cars, vans, and I even saw a Lamborghini in there, too. " "By car. The whole city's piled up. I came from my apartment trying to make it out of the city, but that obviously didn't turn out well." He indicated the various purple scars on his arms. Jose pushed up his shirt, pointing to his ribs where there were more bruises. "Hurts like hell." "Is there anything on the news?" "You should know, don't you guys have radios?" Amanda shook her head. "The storm wiped out the power." "Generator's fried like a chicken dinner," Gordon piped in. Jose twiddled with his thumbs for a second, then he sighed. He breathed in, feeling his lungs plead for mercy. If only Randy hadn't beaten him so bad. But Jose knew why Randy had wrecked him. Would support his lie. Jose looked back to Gordon, cracked his neck, and realized beads of sweat had begun to slide down his face. Has to be a coincidence. Gordon was shot in the thigh. Jose had done it. He and Randy had done it. Gulping, he bit his lip. Mind raced to throw together a lie. Lies after lies. "The army's got all the exits of the town sealed up. Put the city into a 'quarantine' zone, I heard. But, really, can you explain to me what the fuck these cannibals are?" "No idea and no clue." Gordon held his leg, getting up. Instantly a wave of heavy stricken pain swept him. But, thanks to those electrolytes, he stayed up. God damn. He pushed the stool against the wall in a rush. "But I shot hundreds of 'em with my rifle. Boom, boom. But you know what? At the rate that they're comin', I'd say this city's got more dead people than live people." "No, you're wrong." Jose glanced at Amanda, then covered his head. "The lucky ones who gott sick died, and fast. These cannibals or whatever aren't dead. Dead people don't walk. These people, the ones out there walking, are alive. I remember a couple months ago, the hospital here got some people with the disease. Died and didn't come back." Amanda covered her mouth, remembering what Brock told her. She looked up to the ceiling. No lights. The room was dim and vague minus for the light shooting in from the few fluorescent lights still holding onto life from the hallway. "Before we started taking people in, there were some police units clearing out apartments and suburbs. Y'know anything about that?" Jose realized everything he had said so far had been made up from scratch. He'd seen it firsthand when he and Randy had drove into the city. The streets were lined up with police. Gave Jose the chills, fearing they'd be arrested. But they weren't. People were being dragged out of their homes. Apartments and houses in the outskirts of Indianapolis were all covered with police. People being loaded into trucks. The sick—Jose guessed from them looking weak and frail like skeletons—being thrown into other police vans. What a sight. At the time Jose thought "lucky them and not me." He looked at Amanda, straight face-to-face. "Lady, I drove past shit I never want to see again. Anything with a bed for a person to live in was trashed up. The people thrown about like they were animals." He took a deep breath. "Kids, man..." Jose kept shaking his head. "Then my car flipped over in the pileup." "The looter's fault?" asked Amanda. "Maybe your Herman got in the way of your eyes," said Gordon, with a chuckle. "A big oil spill," he said. Gordon's shoulder fell to the wall. He felt better when he did it. All the pain left his thigh and it all went numb. Sure, a bandage or two plus some antiseptic would work, he thought, but I gotta start thinking ahead of the game. Gordon snapped his fingers at Amanda. There was a time when Gordon didn't know much about cars. Couldn't tell a lemon from a dandy automobile, but that had changed since young adulthood. Gordon had been a "rocker", or a nickname for a teenager up to no good, yet still managed to get a driver's license. As a "rocker", it had been a must to know everything about Cars. Either that or you weren't a cool guy. A cool motherfucker, Gordon had been. Still am, you mean motherfucker. Gordon rolled his eyes. Even the guy in denim, Nolan,—pretty sure that was his name, though Gordon wasn't the best with names, only with faces (he remembered Nolan had that Greaser look on him)—could have been a rocker. If only Gordon could have gotten to know the man, with a stick of grain in his mouth, snagged up and hot-wired a pick-up in Nolan's farmtown , he'd have had a new guy to talk with about the Indy 500. He wouldn't even care if Nolan had ended Frank's life or nothing because, to be honest, Gordon had had enough boring days. Amanda signaled a "just a minute" with her hand, got up from her chair, and gave a last look at Jose. It was one swift, brief look. She had a finer tone on her face. Not much anger left and more color filled her eyes. Sensed her eyes starting to tear up. But she stayed stubborn, held them back, and walked over to Gordon, who by then had made for the exit. "What do you think?" Gordon said. He shut the door behind her with a loud oof before surveying the hallway. Amanda crossed the hallway with Gordon, trying to get as far as she could from the room. They were in front of the cafeteria entrance, their feet clacking loudly against the empty corridor. Made sense because the refugees weren't aloud out of the gymnasium. Unless they had permission. From Brock. She saw Malcolm running down in the opposite direction, lugging up a flashlight. Lucky him, but not until he hears what Jose said. She grabbed her rifle, which she'd left against the wall, and slung it over her back. All she needed was her radio, but that was sadly gone, much thanks to Brock who had asked for it to hand to Malcolm. Something's up, she marveled, but didn't quite know what was being kept behind closed doors. "He sounds aright. Definitely in a lot of pain. You were out there when shit hit the fan, right?" "More or less." Gordon said. He held his thigh in his grip, his fingers digging into his skin. Oh shit, this burns. "Before I got jumped by dozens of those things when the fence was torn down, there was a ton of cars in the road." He felt his leg once more, rubbing it. "Prob'ly telling the truth... but there's one thing that don't quite fit his story." "What could he possibly gain from lying?" Gordon looked stumped. "I really need an ice pack." "Gordon." Amanda said. "Tell me what you were going to say." "Alright, alright." Gordon wrestled through his hair. He was sweating now in the damp air. Good thing he was in dark green fatigues or else he would've felt embarrassed around a pretty lady like Amanda. "If his car had flipped in an oil spill, then why was there no oil on him? You can't get rid of an oil stain in the time he made it here, but it's not just that. His clothes aren't that torn up. Sure, a car crash will mess you up good, but his body's more damaged than what he's wearin'—and no ordinary T-shirt is gonna withstand a car flipping over without getting its fabric ripped!" He rubbed his chin, contemplating on what was the truth. "He even lied about what car he was driving in–first he says an SUV, and then a truck." "You're making assumptions, Don, and they're pretty convincing ones." Amanda continued. "You think he's that guy that shot at us yesterday?" "No." Gordon shook his head. "Believe me, I'm sure of it. I think the sonuvabitch who shot me is in that room and he and his boyfriend are a tag team." "Oh, hell," growled a beast behind them suddenly. "I'm fine, the better Carter. Doing good, real good." Gordon turned around at the sound of a man's boots slapping the floor, and got a sight of Carter Jameson walking aimlessly and in a drunken stance. What's he up to, and why is he walking like he's got a stick up his ass? ---- It was darker than a carload of assholes, and smelled the same. Even with the light, even with Eugene at his side mumbling like a horny hummingbird, Joseph couldn't keep off his growing fear. Was it fear, or anticipation? Whatever it was, Joseph was ashamed. The air was thick with the gray smoke, piling in front of the ajar basement door not but six feet or less in front of the trio. Whether it was the stench coming from the sweaty vermin in Alexander's hands, or the nearing scent of undead folks, Joseph was still scared. The others were much the same, but Alexander was having the lot of it. Joseph watched his comrade have a twisting fit, but couldn't bother himself do do much about it. There was no escaping the smell. This was the kind of thing, Joseph thought, that really brought out the best in a person. He'd smelled it before in the lingering fear of the refugees. They were all the same. All of them had their differences, but this was ''the type of shit that made your instincts squeal and your stomach shiver on edge. Joseph knew the feeling. He ''had smelled this damned stench before, and you might have felt pity for him. But Joseph was a big boy, he could handle himself, though not to sure about Eugene. The kid had a gun for Christ's sake, so the boy could hold his own weight for how ever long it took to empty the solids in a handgun. From the looks of it, he wondered, that Beretta might just put a stop to one of the dead guys. ''Joseph redoubled his grip on the flashlight, his palm sweaty. He never trusted his instincts. Had business to take care of to make sure that everything would be alright in Brockville. Joseph liked the energy, even though his heart was pumping now as if it was popping popcorn. Joseph was thicker than the stinking air. He could take a hammer to the chest, maybe even a sledgehammer, just something impress the boys back home. It was dark in the hallway. Swampy and smelling stronger than drug dealer cologne–it was a no-brainer that the smell was seeping in from the basement. "Here we are," Joseph said, carefully creeping forward. The hairs on his neck rose at a half-bend, and he gulped as a sudden hot lashed at his cheeks like a whip. Joseph checked his radio. It was there dangling and minding its own damn business; ready for use. ''Don't need it, he thought, and don't wanna use it anyways. He centered the glow of the light on the door, his stomach churning. Boiling and bursting. He imagined what the dead people looked like. Adults and kids, they all had that damned smell like flanks of meat left to thaw outside with magots squirming in them. "It's trying to friggin bite me," Alex said, sputtering. He switched fingers on the rat's cylindrical tail, surprised by how slippery the rat's ass was. The rat snapped at Alex, hissing and its eyes growing from tiny pebbles to the size of billiard balls. The rat drooled, spatting on Alex's once-white T-shirt, and flustered around and whupping its paws and kicking his hind legs in Alex's face. "Talk about getting a front seat," said Eugene. Alexander struggled once more, his grip slipping. "Yo, Joe, are we going to give those fellas a critter to eat?" "No," Joseph said, "we'll drag 'em out and off them one by one." "Kill them, you mean?" Eugene said, examining the basement door. He was sure he'd stepped in some sort of gunk. Carol, you would have laughed. Eugene observed his shoe, patting it on the linoleum tiles. He saw the unfortunate truth–a spot of bloody mush that may have been part of a brain before. Eugene doubled over, bending his head and coughing, choking. Joseph saw the mush and pushed aside the boy, scanning it. "Don't take off your mask, you get that Eugene?" The brain matter was grayed and slightly red with blood, oozing out like armpits and stringing out into the basement. Suddenly, Joseph heard the trickle of moving water, but as the three of them moved in, they discovered that it wasn't the water's doing, more like the bloodied corpse of a man on the wooden oak stairs leading downwards. "I'll be dipped in shit," Alex shouted, finally letting go of the darned rat. It hit the floor harder than expected, but it was enough to make rat land confused. It scurried off, but didn't once consider heading back to its herd. The rat hadn't been able to eat much before when the rats had uncovered the loosely packed rations in the gymnasium. It leaped down each of the steps, stopping once near the man's body, to raise its hindlegs and start doing what any hellspawn would do. Eugene fell back, looking astonished as Joseph and Alex walked into the basement. "You two are insane," he said. The rat had begun to claw at what was left of the man's hands, stabbing his pitchforked teeth into the fingers, and digging into the bone. "Holy shit..." Joseph flapped his hand at Eugene, waving the flashlight glare downwards. It was literally the belly of the beast. The pumping gears of basement were groaning, obviously trying to digest the basement's off-the-mill smell. Joseph went to grab his nose, halt the damn smell, but realized he was about to pull off his mask and cursed. He let Alex take the lead, understanding that Alex was hearing the noise too. Off the bat Alex was huffing and puffing, staring at the rat, then at the body of the man. It was a man, definitely, even though his face had been torn apart to the side looking like jowls. The rat jerked a paw, and then went back headfirst into the man's palm. Alexander shook with terror. "I think we should go back, Joe," he started, reaching the bottom of the steps. He had his rifle brandished, about a quarter of the mag had drained. It was still enough to pack a punch. Alexander checked his watch, the light flashing out that it was well-past noon. Soon they would have to go back, but soon wasn't coming fast enough. "We can just come back later, tell Malcolm we got out–" "No one is going back," Joseph barked. "Not until we find out whatever shit's lying in this dump, okay? We don't call it quits until we..." Joseph became aware of something, something different. Wasn't the rat, it was still there gnawing on the man's bony fingers. It was a noise, too familiar to be certain, but it did make Joe grab at his instincts again. He lifted his chin to Alex's rifle, "Get that ready." "What's happening?" Eugene was halfway down, passing by the rat when his heart stopped at the sound of a loud moan. His spine tingled, setting off his heart like the beat of a xylophone. Alex readied his rifle, grabbing its chest and locking a finger on the trigger. "I hear it. The moans." He paused, looking to the left where the basement's generator was at, or sounded like it was. "Flash over there," he moved into the beam of light, a green mist enveloping him. The generator had been recently touched, by the looks of it. Must have been when the other soldiers packed in a gas tank. Instead of being loud and cooking, the generator was fizzling and its needles dead asleep. The ON 'button was open like a sleepy eyelid, and Alex turned up at the right time to see the orange button glow its last glow. He turned. "Generator's empty!" But Joseph didn't respond with words. The emptiness hung in the air for a short second, maybe two seconds. Enough time for Alex to worry. He waited, expecting to hear even Eugene. Alex began to walk back, and as an afterthought he looked down to spot several splotches of what could have been mistaken as a red paint, but clearly it was something more sinister. Then he heard the crank out of a gunshot, wincing. He lifted the rifle, but then felt a tug on his arm. The uncertainty didn't stick. Alexander gritted his teeth, and wiped his eyes across the leathery face of a diseased woman. She had her cold, undead grasp on Alex, but he quickly sent her down. "What the hell?" There was no time for answers. Alexander mustered through the smog and saw the flashlight glow in the distance, not a meter away, but the air was thicker than a boar's ass and it seemed farther away. The woman was back up, her feet–missing shoes and covered in dust from the unswabbed floor–were trying to regain steadiness on the ground. "Can't believe this." Alexander ducked to the wall, covering his eyes from the specks of ash in the basement. The tunnel was narrow and dark, the stink stronger than it was from in the hallway. He wiped a tear from his right eye, walking towards the moving figure of Joseph, though Joseph wasn't the only figure moving. At the base of the stairs, Alexander saw the sight of a drooling bunch of crazies. "This isn't' real, Joe!" "I think it is!" said Joseph. The dead were alive and well. Alexander propped up his rifle, bolting the gun. Joseph, ahead of him, was kneeling shooting and struggling to fight off three crazies. Just then, Alex saw a large, bulk of a man wading to him. Big enough to fill up the width of the walking space, the man growled over the roaring of Joseph's gun. Alex patted the magazine twice and shot, and shot again, and again, and then again, but ultimately it did nothing to stop the creature. The man was coming fast now, four bulletholes etched into the man's midsection. ''Aim for the head, he thought. But Alexander didn't want to, he was afraid at the distance. He could miss the first shot–first shots always count– or the man's head could explode like a damn red platter smashing. He was too late to act on any thoughts. The man bent forward, grabbing Alexander by the arm and slapping away the rifle. ''Make it quick. '''Then the man stopped, almost as if struck by lightning. The side of his head wasn't where Alex had seen it before. It hung to the side, his ear and all dangling. Another gunshot sounded and a piece of jawbone flew out, plus now Alexander gazed in complete disgust at the man's visible teeth through a broken cheek. "Better," Joseph muttered, surprised and shocked by it all. "What in the blue ''shit was that, Joe?" He leaned over in a pant, seeing Joseph was with his back against the wall, fending off the last of the three crazies. "That was me," Eugene's voice streamed in from the stairs. "I did that." Eugene watched Joseph throw down the crazie, a snapping blonde with her gut torn into. Gulping, Eugene pushed back the trigger on the pistol, and at the shot the woman stopped her efforts to get back up. He was about to call it "quits", but then saw the shoeless woman making her way to Alexander. The woman was sloppy and drooling, a large drop of spit rolling off her lips. It made a hard noise against the stone floor, and sent Alexander frozen with fear. She was about two or three feet away from Alex's back, and she had begun to outspread her blistered arms when she jerked back. She yelped, noticing that the boy had shot off a round into her shoulder. She continued. Her yellowed teeth, settled in her mouth like dirty daggers, sprung to view. It wasn't until another round was volleyed that she stopped, forcefully, and realized the boy had blasted away the right flank of her neck. But the flesh wound didn't do much, so Eugene hit her straight between the eyes. Eugene glanced at Joseph, who was trying to cope with what just happened. "I can't..." Joseph drew off, grabbing his knees and gasping for breath. It was raining like the dickens above the basement, above the school to be exact. One of these days, the rain'll stop for good. They were in winter, ice-cold winter, and Joseph was waiting for the snow to just drop dead on the crazies. "I have no one clue what just happened," he heard himself say. "The dead are walking, I think. I can't believe my eyes, I truly cannot believe my eyes." "It's a dream," said Alexander. "A dream?" Joseph said. "A nightmare." "We found what Malcolm and Brock wanted," Alex began, "now what do we do? Go back?" Joseph straightened up, his rifle to his hipside. He counted the dead bodies, stopping at the shoeless women and pointing. "Five. That was only five out of more than twenty bodies put in here." He and Alexander exchanged looks, then the both of them nodded in a sort of agreement. "What's the plan now?" Eugene was walking up the stairs, hands around his pistol. He noticed the green mist from the basement was flowing into the hallway, and then heard a rumbling groan from where the generator was located in the tunnel. Joseph was staring into the misty tunnel, shooting light down the path. He saw the outline of the front of the generator, and found splatters of blood and brain on the top rafters. Then a steam pipe, nearest to them, burst into a hissing fit. "Run," he told Alexander. But before the man could act any further, Joseph saw three rows of faces, varying with age and disease, lurching behind the crew-cropped head of Alexander. If Joseph had learned anything, absolutely anything, it was to not trust his instincts. But now you have to. Joseph shook his head, focusing on Alex. The soldier was weeping and trying to wrap his head around what was going on. "Alex–" That was as far as Joseph got before Alexander bolted past him and up the stairs. "Go!" Joseph saw the first of the front row, a healthy looking crazie, in dead terms, with milky whites and flaring nostrils, hoofing like an angry hog. Too close to fire off, and too close to even aim, so Joseph chose his only other sensible option–running after Alexander. He came to when he reached the top of the stairs, shooting by on a half-assed breath. He was splashed with a gulf of cool air, still toxic like the mossy growths in the basement. At the mention, Joseph looked over his shoulder, finding himself chuckling as the loads of crazies piled on the steps. Everything would be alright. And then he remembered the threat they posed. The crazies were nothing like the zombies Eugene droned about. They were smart, and they would reach the hallway eventually. The door wouldn't stand. Joseph wasn't sure he had enough solids to off them all, so he took another deep breath and looked around the hallway. He saw Alexander, or maybe it was Eugene, dashing back to where they'd come from. Yelling and screaming, they ran and ran. Joseph gulped, eyes wide with horror as three–he blinked to make sure–crazies shuffled up the stairway, crashing into each other but still, they came and drifted into the hall like a pack of rabid wolves. Joseph turned to run, figuring it'd be pointless to try anything, but felt his leg jolt with pain. A blinding, white light stabbed his vision, sending him fumbling with the rifle and flashlight, and smacking the floor with his chest. Winded, he dazed for a bit on the floor, and paced at the thought of just giving up and going to sleep, but there would be time for that later. He scrambled for his rifle, plucking it up by the string as he got up. The flashlight had been knocked into the crowd of crazies, but managed to shine the path of which Joseph took to gallop away, limping on his paining leg. His gun was slipping to the point where he was grabbing it by the smoking hot barrel, his fingertips on fire from the grainy gunpowder. "Wait up," he shouted, falling against the drywall. He noticed another poster, one that Caroline had made with Eugene's uncle, and noticed it was crumpled amongst other posters of the same type, but with different names. Some of the students on the posters must have been dead, he thought. Before he limped off, he recognized an acne-riddled face on a poster as the crazie he had found the week before. Damn, he thought. Dammit... He composed himself, ripping himself from the wall, and pushed aside the pain from his cramped leg. It didn't matter, the pain, he'd dealt with worse beforehand. Nothing but an ant bite to him, nothing more, so he trailed around the corner and stopped to catch his breath again. As he rubbed his chest and bent over, he saw two boots in front of him. Then there was a thud, and another thud behind Joseph as a rifle sounded. He looked up to see a gas mask-wearing man. Malcolm, he figured. He remembered the gas mask, the only one that had been taken into the school before the fences broke over. "Are you alright?" "Yeah," Joseph said, lifting himself into a straight posture. He glanced at two bodies, emaciated from hunger, on the floor. "There's more, and they're coming." Malcolm said nothing, only turned around to acknowledge a police officer–the one and only Hector Pacino, and strapped across his face was a medical mask. "Change of plans, huh, Malcolm?" Hector said, leveling his handgun to his side. He looked at Joseph, grinning, but obviously Joseph couldn't see it behind the mask, not to mention the darkness. "Where's Alexander? Eugene?" Malcolm put his hand on Joseph, pushing him to Hector. "Getting ready with the others. Hector was patrolling and heard gunshots so he got me to come." He paused, ushering the two back and they started speeding back home, or what Joseph had called the portion of the school with the most breathers and least crazies. "I radioed Brock and told him to get the troops in order. You were attacked, right?" "Yeah, and we barely made it out." "Figured," Malcolm said, his tone quite agitated. Not at all with the soldier, or that he had let a cold blooded murderer named Hector Pacino walk, although Hector was probably the reason his blood pressure had been reaching its limits lately, but it was because of something else. "Shit's going down, okay Joe? And I need everyone together so nobody gets hurt." "There's tons of them, all pouring out of the basement." They had reached the cafeteria by then, and Joseph got a glance at the clinic. He wasn't sure if it was the exhaustion, or if some fly had flown into his eye, but he caught a glimpse of something move the in the clinic. The person moving was, and he was a hundred percent sure, Nolan Brackenbury in clear day strutting through the clinic with a wide-stretched smile that might have been able to go around the world three times over. And then he saw a moving shape, Carter he believed, looking at Nolan before wandering off into the nurse's office. Joseph was about to do something, and he knew he wouldn't bust one of the last people in the school with a working mind–although, Nolan did end the officer's life, but some could argue it was Brockville's doing–so he waited a second to decide, but that didn't last long as an orchestra of popping noises sounded. He covered his ears, yelling under the gunfire as his ears screeched with pain. Joseph twisted around, wrestling in a blanket of confusion, and had his fingers creep around his M16, and saw a wave of sickly, enraged walking dead people–way more than three rows of crazies now–shambling through the hallway to their closest target. Him. Issues Category:Step by Step Category:Category:Step by Step Issues Category:Issues